


Better Days (The Movies)

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-30
Updated: 2007-04-30
Packaged: 2019-01-19 15:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: The truth is I couldn’t bear to look at her standing there with her cancelled-Christmas look; I couldn’t stand to hear the words coming from her mouth, the words which broke my heart in turn.





	Better Days (The Movies)

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

\- Better Days (The Movies) - 

[Pete Murray, ‘Better Days’]

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the look on her face when she said goodbye, and I didn’t stop her. It was like telling a kid that Christmas was cancelled this year because Santa went on holiday instead. I think I managed to break her heart somewhere in the time it took to shrug my shoulders, shuffle my feet and close the door.

The truth is I couldn’t bear to look at her standing there with her cancelled-Christmas look; I couldn’t stand to hear the words coming from her mouth, the words which broke my heart in turn. In that moment, somewhere between shrugging my shoulders, shuffling my feet and closing the door, I accepted the awful truth that we never should have been together in the first place. 

She knew I would be standing at the window, watching her walk down the drive. She gave me one last look before she spun on the spot and disappeared. Just as she knew I didn’t want to say goodbye, for her to leave, I knew she wouldn’t come back. It was almost like the movies. 

The house had grown cold without her presence and little homely touches, and I became a prisoner in my own home. The stairs melded together and provided a slide straight to the figurative bottomless pit my life had become. Even the clock taunted me. Its constant ticking reminded me that I was spending another night alone, just staring out the window at the place I saw her last. On those nights, I watched the brown leaves fall, one by one, to the ground, only to be covered by the snow and shovelled away by the kid next door. She wasn’t a pureblood; she didn’t want to live in a magical community. We lived in the Muggle suburbs, where children ran amok every day once school was out. 

When she left, there was still grass out the front. I didn’t know how to start the push mower. I had to pay the same snow-shovel kid next door to mow my lawn. 

She’d wanted children. A boy and a girl, in that order. She wanted to name the boy after her grandfather and the girl after my mother — she liked flowers. It was part of the plan: married for a year before falling pregnant; a year later we would try again. 

But we never made it to the engagement party. The ring was still in its box in my briefcase. That was more of a torment than the ticking clock. I was going to propose the night she stood at the doorway at looked at me with her cancelled-Christmas eyes. I still kick myself for not speaking up, for not presenting the ring there and then, but I think I had let her go the moment I saw the suitcase at the foot of the stairs. It had probably been over a long time before I realised it. 

I still heard of her, and I could live with it most days. Someone would mention they’d been speaking to her, and I’d be torn between asking for more information and clamping my hands over my ears, humming loudly and making nonsense noises so as not to hear anything. She’d moved back in with her parents and was preparing for a brief stint in Italy. No sign of a boyfriend, but that didn’t worry me. I’d already lost her. It didn’t matter if I lost her to someone else. 

What was more bothering was that she was going overseas. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to run away too. Somewhere far, far away where no one knew me and I’d be able to start again and meet another her, but it would never happen. People like me don’t just up and leave, hoping for a new start. People like me sit and stare at the same spot every night, brooding over the past while watching a kid shovel snow. 

The hardest part to accept was that she’d just left. There was no conversation, no discussion about her being unhappy. She just packed her things, said goodbye, put on her cancelled-Christmas eyes and walked away. A backwards glance and then... gone. Just like the movies. 

When my friends found out what had happened, they gave me a pat on the back and muttered various apologies. I recall wondering why they spoke of her as if she was dead. I was dead to her, but she wasn’t dead. Our relationship failed, is all. Why couldn’t they have been more understanding about that? People I’d known for years, even from our glory days at Hogwarts ... they didn’t offer any encouraging words. Nothing that would help me to pick everything up and keep on going, just pats on the back and an occasional cup of coffee. 

But I know that I haven’t anything to cry over. Yes, she was gone, but just as I’d accepted that, I’ve accepted that I never lost anything that was given to me. She wasn’t mine to have. She was someone who came into my life, filled a few seasons with laughter and sunshine, and then she was gone. Warmth packed its bag and moved out with her, but I still have my memories. 

I saw her not too long ago. It was like something out of the movies, only I wasn’t walking that particular street in the hope of seeing her. She was getting out of a Muggle cab in the city. I stopped still, wondering if I should approach her or not, but she made that decision for me. She looked at me and smiled, and I couldn’t see any hurt in her eyes when she easily reached for my hand. I knew the hurt would be in my eyes, but I couldn’t change the fact that I still loved her. We both knew that. 

She had a meeting in half an hour, but that didn’t stop us walking through the park. She told me all about Italy and how her job was going, but she didn’t talk of anything personal. I didn’t dare ask or provide similar information, if only because I didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes. Having her so close didn’t thrill me like I thought it would, though. I craved her company, but I didn’t want to tuck that stray hair behind her ear. She was still gorgeous, but she wasn’t mine to have now, just as she wasn’t mine a year ago. 

She suggested that we meet again after her meeting, but we both knew it was a courtesy on her part. There was one thing I wanted to give her though, and not because I wanted her to know what my intentions were all those months ago, but because I bought it for her, and it didn’t belong with anyone else. 

She gasped when I give her the jeweller’s box, and then the mask fell. She cried and leapt into my arms, and told me how much she missed me, especially when she was in Italy. It was the reaction I wanted, only it was too late. She stepped back and dried her eyes. She stared at the ring for a long time before she asked why I didn’t say something when she left. 

‘Because you were already gone,’ I managed to croak out, and she left, presumably for her meeting. I called after her and she stopped. I wondered why I didn’t do that a year ago, it wasn’t that hard. 

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. 

She comes back to me and I can see the hurt in her eyes now. ‘You loved me but you let me walk away.’ 

I didn’t know what to say. If we were in the movies, I’d know exactly what to do and I’d take her in my arms and ask her to come back. But we weren’t in the movies, and she had her new, exciting life to lead. That life didn’t involve me. Too much had changed. 

Ten years later, and she still wears that ring. Ten years later, she plays with her children and tells her husband that she loves him. I read her political opinions in _The Daily Prophet_ , and I wonder how things would have turned out if we’d gotten back together that day in the park. 

But that is neither here nor there. I’m married now. My wife and I have a five-year- old daughter and we’re happy. Our daughter is the same age as her son. We often joke that our children will fall in love at Hogwarts. It’s not particularly a funny joke, but wouldn’t that be just like the movies?

FINIS.

A/N: something I wrote in one day, because I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. It was originally meant as a Harry/Ginny piece, but it took on a life of its own, and it doesn’t strictly apply to any pairing. Just two people, who went to Hogwarts, fell in love, fell out of love and moved on. Comments would be appreciated; I know this sort of writing frustrates people (it usually frustrates me. Go figure).

Thanks to **rose_pagonias** for posting this. She rocks. ;) 

_Satirise._


End file.
